Yeah, how could he? Alone, with no weapons, and no way of radioing for help, how could he do the job?
“You just leave that chore to me!” Gregg said, banging it out all the more emphatically because he was so uncertain.
Susan looked at him a little strangely. “You’re a pretty skeptical, determined sort of person, aren’t you?” she said. Gregg flushed. “What makes you say that?” he demanded. Her eyes clashed with his, but hers were the first to lower.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she stammered. “It’s just—well, I guess I’ve always lived a sort of sheltered life. I’ve never come in contact with men who—”
“Didn’t look too clean, or act that way either,” Gregg finished for her brutally. “Well, it’s about time you learned what makes the wheels go round. Never could stand you pampered society dolls anyway. What good are you? When your type gets in trouble, it has to go whining for help.…”
That was as far as he got. Not too many generations back in her ancestry, Susan Lamphier’s people had been hard-bitten Yankees who sailed the seas and worked and fought, if need be, for what they got. Susan retained their strength of character in her blood.
More, she had their temper. At Gregg’s words she lit into the tall, cynical youngster like a little wildcat. Her small feet kicked at his shins. Her nails scratched at his face. And her elbows pounded angrily at his chest.
Startled, Gregg gave way. Then his gray eyes flashed. He wouldn’t take it from a man; he wouldn’t take it from a girl, either.
He reached out and slapped Susan in the face, a stinging little blow that left the imprint of his fingers on her soft tanned cheek.
Susan stopped fighting. She looked at Gregg? suddenly very much hurt. And then she began to cry. Not loud and harshly, but in soft little sobs, like a small girl who has been punished for something she didn’t do.
Gregg got suddenly very red in the face. He began to feel like a heel.
You dope, he thought, taking your anger out on an innocent girl. You ought to be slugged in the jaw and have the stuffing kicked out of you.
The blanket had slipped from Susan’s sobbing shoulders. Gregg picked it up and wrapped it around the girl.
“There, there,” he soothed. “I—I guess we must have lost our tempers. I should have known better—”
Susan shook the tears out of her eyes.
“You’re—you’re just a big bully,” she said, her spirit coming back. “You don’t care anything about a girl’s feelings. You—”
“But I’m not!” Gregg protested heatedly. “You’re no lily of the valley yourself!”
He shook her shoulders for emphasis. And suddenly Susan began to smile.
“There you go again,” she said. “I suppose you’ll be hitting me next.”
Gregg glared at her. “Dammit,” he swore, “I’m going to teach you a lesson! For once and for all, It’s about time somebody taught you a thing or two!”
And he folded her suddenly in his arms, hard. Susan fought him. Gregg laughed recklessly, tilted her firm little chin up to his own. He kissed her then. Kissed her with youthful abandon; then a little less harshly … then tenderly. Her soft young body relaxed slowly against his own, and slowly, slowly her lips responded.…
He thrust her from him then.
“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I should have known better. I—I.…”
He turned abruptly on his heel and stalked off, motioning with his head for the girl to follow him. She did; and there was an amused light in her eyes. And a little tenderness, too.
CHAPTER IV
PAYOFF IN BLOOD
Gregg took Susan to a hut back of the trading station, told her to sleep and keep hidden until he came for her. Then he returned to his cot on the veranda. And racked his brain until dawn, groping for some plan of action that would have one chance in ten at least of working.…
After sunup, a boat put out from the Leeward.
Stocky, white-haired Scanlon, Skipper Rogg, the cameraman Hawes, Nigel Rorke and two members of the crew landed on the beach. A seaman rowed the dinghy back to the yacht. Scanlon’s party came on to the trading station, and Gregg saw that they carried shovels and crowbars.
The trader noticed the shovels, and frowned.
“Scanlon, you have to have a French permit to dig up relics.”
“Oh, we’re just going to do a little clearing away of brush and rock on that flat, for picture taking. Come along, and see for yourself.”
Gregg’s heart skipped a beat. If Scanlon did find that buried coin, he would shut DeCourcey’s mouth with a bullet. Frowning, Gregg watched the party head inland along the river.
He waited a full hour. Through binoculars, he studied the Leeward, anchored beyond the reef.
“Two men, stretching out on deck. Each with a pistol in his belt. How,” he mused, “should I tackle ’em?”
He walked up the beach, around a headland. Then he walked out into the surf. Swimming low in the water, lifting his face out only for gulps of air, he headed for the yacht, on the side opposite to the men lying on deck.
Reaching the Leeward’s dinghy, he pulled himself hand over hand up its painter to the yacht rail, and drew himself aboard. Carefully, then, he started forward.
Opening a stateroom door, he looked inside, saw it was empty. He moved to the next stateroom, opened the door—and looked straight into the eyes of a young fellow lying on a bunk, his left arm swathed in bandages.
“Lanphier?” Gregg whispered. “I’m here to help you.”
“Susan sent you?” the youngster whispered back eagerly.
“Yeah. Hold still, while I untie those ropes.”
Young Lanphier looked like his sister, except that his hair was sandy and his features stronger. He was hog-tied into the bunk.
Gregg asked, “How many people on board?”
“Two seamen. And Mrs. Scanlon, in the cabin behind this.”
“When you want something, they told you to sing out for it?”
“Yeah.”
“All right, call out,” Gregg snapped—and flattened himself against the wall beside the door.
“Hey, Swede!” Lanphier yelled. “Bring me a drink!”
He yelled again, and a third time.
“All right, all right. Pipe down, damn it!”
Lazy footsteps sounded on deck. A tall, husky seaman carrying a tray came to the stateroom door, kicked it open and started inside. Gregg stepped into his way, swinging. Fist met jaw with a hard, sharp cra-ack! The seaman staggered back out the doorway and collapsed to the deck, his tray clattering down beside him. Gregg stooped swiftly to snatch the pistol from the man’s belt.
But even as he lunged, he saw a shadow on the deck. And Gregg flung himself forward as he snatched at the fallen sailor’s gun. A hot flash of pain seared along his ribs as a .38 roared flat and heavy in the warm air. Then the gun in Gregg’s hand kicked as it spurted fire—and the other seaman, beyond Gregg, doubled up, clutching at his chest, the gun falling from his fist as he pitched headlong to the deck.
Gregg jumped up, pistol leveled. But the man was dead.
Startled footsteps rounded the bow. Looking up, Gregg saw Mrs. Scanlon coming—and the woman stopped short, both hands to her face, and screamed. Gregg strode toward her.
“You won’t be hurt, Mrs. Scanlon. Go back to your stateroom.”
He locked her in there. Returning, he tied up the sailor he had knocked senseless and took the dead man’s pistol.
“Any more ammunition on board?” Gregg asked Lanphier as he untied him.
“Yes. In my cabin.”
“Look, could you and I run this boat?”
“Why, yes, if necessary,” the youngster nodded.
“Fine! I’m going ashore. If I come back at all, it’ll be with another man and your sister. Have this tub ready to sail back to Honolulu!”
“How about Scanlon and his outfit?”
“If they come back, I won’t!” Gregg said grimly.…
; Rowing ashore in the dinghy, he realized it would be wisest to send Susan back to the yacht now, where she’d be safe. Beaching the boat, he hurried to the trading station.
“Susan! “he called.
“She not here,” DeCourcey’s native houseboy told him. “That man Hawes come for picks and flashlights. He see girl, and make her go with him.” The Puna-Pukan pointed to the trail inland.
Gregg bit off an oath of utter dismay. This was something he hadn’t counted on. It was a staggering, crippling blow. All too clearly he foresaw complications.
“This makes a setup too tough for one man to handle!” he warned himself. “Unless I can catch up with Hawes and the girl!”
Turning on his heel, he headed for the trail inland.
* * * *
The sun beat hot on Gregg’s shoulders, until the trail reached the canyon where huge ferns and bamboo arched over the river banks to make cool shade. Gregg started running through dense groves of island ebony, of mango and rosewood trees, and jungle-thick growths of crimson hibiscus and the gardenia-like pua. Startled parakeets screamed as he passed, and darted like winged bomb-bursts into tall hutu trees that luxuriated in gorgeous crimson blooms.
But Gregg didn’t sight Hawes and the girl. They had too long a start on him. Doggedly he ran on, laboring for breath as the trail climbed the steepening canyonside. Far below, the river formed deep, shaded pools in which fish jumped.
Ahead of him, finally, Gregg saw the terrace overhanging the river on which Scanlon’s men were working. He slackened pace, and approached cautiously. Surprise would have to be a big part of his ammunition. Keeping under cover of the brush, he approached Scanlon’s party on the plateau gouged out of the side of the canyon wall.
* * * *
From the cliff above, a waterfall poured down in a shower of silvery spray, and flowed in a broad stream across the flat, to arch down again into the river below. Along the edge of the plateau, Gregg saw with surprise that a line of elm trees was growing—huge, magnificent old giants of the kind he’d often seen in New England towns.
He could see now only the stocky, white-haired figure of Scanlon, Susan and DeCourcey. The other men were inside a tunnel they had dug into the back wall of the terrace. Scanlon held a gun in his hand.
Coming closer, Gregg saw Scanlon peer into that tunnel, heard him yell, “Find anything?”
Hawes came out of the tunnel, carrying an old-fashioned Chinese chest of carved wood and leather.
“Just clothes,” he said disgustedly, setting the chest down and flipping the lid back. “Scanlon, there’s a house in there! Funniest damn’ thing. Furniture and a bed that looks a hundred years old. How do you figure it?”
DeCourcey said, “The natives tell me that there was a stone house built here, but an avalanche came down and covered it up. But that was so long ago that nobody now living on the island ever saw the house.”
“That’s your story,” Scanlon retorted, his fleshy face mottled with anger.
He looked toward the tunnel then, for Skipper Rogg and a sailor came out, lugging an old sea chest with a big lock.
“That looks more like it!” Scanlon said. “Quick, get that thing open!”
Hawes broke the lock off with a pick. The men crowded close to look inside as he lifted the top.
“Uniforms!”
“What the hell is this, a costume shop?”
“Dueling pistols, by God! What’s this, Skipper?”
“A sextant—and a damn’ old one.”
“To hell with this trash!” Scanlon burst out. “Go on back inside, everybody! Look sharp. Don’t bring out any more junk, damn you!”
“But there’s nothing else in there,” Nigel Rorke insisted. “Just furniture and books and rugs and pictures.”
“We’ve gone through the place like a cop friskin’ a tramp,” Skipper Rogg offered weakly.
“The chart says that money is here!” Scanlon raged.
“Maybe the chart is a fake,” DeCourcey said mildly.
Scanlon looked at him, eyes narrowed, for a long, thoughtful moment, and the mottled red of his fleshy face deepened. Abruptly he took a step toward the little trader, reached out and grabbed his shirt front in a big fist.
“DeCourcey, you’ve already looted this hideaway. Haven’t you?”
The mild little trader blinked with surprise.
“Me? Good Lord, no!”
Scanlon smashed his fist into DeCourcey’s face, knocked him sprawling to the ground. Reaching down, Scanlon hauled him onto his feet.
“What did you do with it?” he roared.
“With wh-what? I tell you—”
“Gold and silver bullion!” Scanlon rasped. “Is it in your trading station?”
“So help me, Scanlon, I’ve never—”
Again Scanlon knocked him down. And as the gray-haired trader got up, blood streaming across his jaw, Scanlon ordered:
“Hawes—and you, Rorke—make him talk!”
They grabbed DeCourcey. Stripped off his shoes. Hawes struck a match. Touched the flame to the bare sole of DeCourcey’s foot—
And Gregg, watching from the brush, sprang into action. The gun blazed from his hand, and Hawes plunged flat on his face to the ground, a bullet in his brain. Gregg burst out of cover then, charged the surprise-stunned group.
They broke and ran for shelter—all except Scanlon, who jerked the muzzle of his gun toward the fighting youngster. But Susan grabbed Scanlon’s arm, and the bullet went wild. He pulled violently away from her; struck her across the temple with the gun barrel, knocking her to the ground.
Gregg triggered a slug at him that slashed his thick arm from wrist to elbow. The gun dropped from Scanlon’s grasp, but he snatched at it with his left hand, caught it and darted into the tunnel opening.
DeCourcey had scrambled to his feet. He bent now, picked up the senseless girl, and ran unsteadily to meet Gregg.
Scanlon shot at them from the tunnel. Gregg whipped a slug at him that knocked rock fragments into Scanlon’s face, and the man dodged back. His men had taken shelter behind the elms at the far end of the terrace, and now they started shooting.
“Here, I’ll take the girl, DeCourcey!” Gregg said.
He thrust one of his two guns into DeCourcey’s hands, took Susan in his own arms, and started back down the trail to the beach at a lurching run.
A bullet knifed through leaves over Gregg’s head, and another hissed past his ear. Behind Gregg, the trader shot back at Scanlon’s men, his gun going wham! wham!
And then Gregg heard DeCourcey gasp, heard the thud of a heavy fall. Gregg halted, look back and saw the trader sprawled face down on the path.
“DeCourcey! You hurt?”
“No, I—”
DeCourcey tried to get up, but his right leg buckled under him and he fell. Blood streamed from his thigh. Gregg looked wildly around. A few paces on down the trail was a pile of boulders that had avalanched from the rimrock.
He ran to the midst of the rock fall and put the senseless girl on the ground. Running back to the trail, he helped DeCourcey to his feet, helped him hop into the shelter of the rock barricade. A bullet creased Gregg’s hip as they ran, and another slug scattered rock splinters into the side of his face and ricocheted screaming to one side.
Gregg triggered a shot in answer at the four men coming down the trail, and they scattered into the brush for protection.
* * * *
DeCourcey bent over Susan Lanphier. A stain of crimson showed at the roots of her shining bronze-red hair.
“Lad, you think that fat swine fractured her skull?”
“Don’t know. I’d like to fracture his!”
“Look, Gregg. You take the girl on down to the beach. I’ll stay and keep shooting to hold these crooks back.”
“Like hell I will! You’ll get killed. Damn it, you’re forgetting I got to take you to Honolulu to swear me out of twenty years in prison!”
“But I’m hurt. We can’t all get away, boy.”
>
“Listen—soon as it’s dark, we’ll sneak off. I got a boat on the beach. We’ll row out to the yacht. The girl’s brother has got control of it by now. We’ll get to hell-and-gone away from Puna-Puka!”
Gregg spoke confidently—but his words ended with a choked oath of consternation, for he saw something that staggered him with dismay.
Scanlon and his three men were climbing down the wall of the canyon, descending to the river.
“They’ll swim across the river,” Gregg realized. “They’ll get past us here, and go on down to the beach. They’ll find the dinghy, and row out to the yacht. They’ll take over the Leeward again—and once they’ve done that, I’m sunk!”
His serious young face wild with panic, he turned to DeCourcey.
“Come on! We got to beat that gang to the beach!”
“You go, lad. Take the girl—”
“No! Man alive, I’ve told you I’ve got to take you to Honolulu. Come on!”
“But the girl needs to be taken care of—”
“She’s got to take her chances!” Gregg blurted in desperation. “All I know is I’ll rot in prison if I don’t get you down to the beach in a hurry. Damn it, come on!”
He reached out, to put an arm about DeCourcey’s shoulders so as to support him—and DeCourcey, standing on one leg, struck him across the temple with the side of his pistol.
Gregg staggered, stumbled back over a rock and fell. And DeCourcey hopped across the trail, and started down the steep canyon wall toward Scanlon’s party descending to the river. Scanlon saw him. Pointed.
“Get him! Get the little ape!” Scanlon ordered his men.
They started shooting, their pistols lancing fire. DeCourcey doubled over and rolled headlong down the slope. He clutched with his hands in a frantic effort to grab rocks or shrubs to ease his sliding fall. But on down he slid and skidded, in a miniature avalanche of dust and rocks, toward Scanlon’s men.
Gregg, jumping to the rim of the trail, looked down and saw Scanlon’s killers shooting at the little trader as he came hurtling down the slope almost directly toward them. Gregg saw gouts of dust spurt from the trader’s coat, as if bullets had thudded into him like slugs striking a dusty pillow.
“The crazy little fool!” Gregg choked—and launched himself down the slope in a reckless, sliding jump.
The Adventure Megapack: 25 Classic Adventure Stories Page 25